This colorfully illustrated book is full of a wealth of facts about the strange and interesting creatures that live in the deepest parts of the sea. It also describes the different layers of the ocean and what creatures live at the different depths.

It's aimed at readers 8-12 years old but I can attest that, as an adult, there were more than a few facts I learned as well while reading this book with my granddaughters.

I truly loved the full color illustrations, so bright and engaging to help hold the attention of younger readers. My granddaughters and I also appreciated the first person commentary of the animals, usually filled with humorous banter, spaced in and around many of the interesting facts about each creature.

We all agreed we liked the vampire squid, which is not really a squid at all, nor is it an octopus, though they share an ancestral link; it's in a group all its own. It doesn't really drink blood like the name implies; it sends out curly filaments that sweep the water for bits of dead animals and poop and that is what it feeds on. It can also tuck itself inside out, into a "pineapple posture" to show off its large spines, when threatened.

Each of us had our own favorite creature as well. Paisley was keen on the zombie worms, which can ooze acid to bore into the bones of dead whales; they then eat the fat that they find inside them. Aubrey has always been a fan of the angler fish that has a lure at the top of its head that it bobs to attract prey. The one that tickled my funny bone the most was the pigbutt worm, which is also known as the “flying buttocks”. It's a worm the size of a hazelnut but it looks exactly like a pig's rear end. It casts out a mucus net to catch marine snow, a shower of organic material falling from the upper waters, to snack on.

There are so many strange and interesting facts about the different layers of the ocean and the creatures who live there, it's really worth a read. If you have younger kids who have a love of the sea, this is a great book to share with them. It's jam packed with information and is over 90 pages long, so I will admit that we took a break around the middle for the girls to eat dinner before we dove back in to reading it. That kept them from drifting off into their own imaginations and helped keep them focused on the book.

Thank you Lindsey Leigh for writing and illustrating such a fantastic book. My granddaughters and I enjoyed diving into the depths of it. ~~ Dee Astell with input from Aubrey & Paisely Hernandez